Ignoring a rejection by the opposition-controlled House of Councilors, the Diet Friday evening passed an ¥83 trillion state budget for fiscal 2008, which starts Tuesday.
Meanwhile, six parties, from both the ruling and opposition camps, reached an agreement the same day on a "stopgap" bill to extend for two months until the end of May the special tax rates on seven categories of items that will increase in price when the current law expires, excluding extra road-related and gasoline levies.
"The public has high expectations (for the Democratic Party of Japan to) abolish the provisional (road-related) tax rates," DPJ Secretary General Yukio Hatoyama said Friday evening after the budget was enacted.